Random blog posts about research in political communication, how people learn or don't learn from the media, why it all matters -- plus other stuff that interests me. It's my blog, after all. I can do what I want.

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

UGA State of Origiin

Fresh data, fresh analyses. I'm looking here at changes in what state undergrads at UGA were from, comparing Fall 2000 to Fall 2015.

Why? Because I like to, dammit.

First blush table below, looking at states other than Georgia and how they ranked in 2000 and 2015. Keep in mind these are only undergrads, only fall semesters. You'll see some big changes, which I'll discuss below the table.

Rank

Fall 2000

Fall 2015

1

South Carolina

North Carolina

2

Tennessee

Texas

3

Florida

Florida

4

North Carolina

Virginia

5

Alabama

Maryland

6

Louisiana

Tennessee

7

Virginia

South Carolina

8

Texas

New Jersey

9

New York

New York

10

Pennsylvania

California

My main takeaways from this table?

Neighboring states like S.C. and Tennessee dropped. South Carolina plummeted from 1st back in Fall 2000 to 7th by Fall 2015. I'll get to why below, or at least my hypothesis as to why.

North Carolina went from 4th to 1st. It's kinda close geographically, but more on perhaps why below.

Texas zoomed from 8th to 2nd, and California climbed from 18th in 2000 to 10th. New Jersey climbed as well, from 13th to 9th. Others moved up, like Virginia. Again, my hypothesis below.

A few dropped out. Louisiana was 6th in 2000, down to 12th by 2015.

OK, but why? I blame UGA's rising academic stature, which attracts more competitive students from states other than the neighboring ones. But -- and this is also important -- states like Texas and North Carolina have their own highly competitive schools, so UGA may be benefiting from spillover. That leaves a lot of students from South Carolina and Tennessee unable to compete academically from kids from these other states. That's my hypothesis, but testing it is another matter.

A few more numbers, if you're so inclined.

As you might expect, South Carolina had the biggest drop in students, 158 fewer in 2015 than in 2000 at UGA.

Next in line was Alabama (106 fewer), then Louisiana (87), Tennessee (73) and Kentucky (21).

Texas had the biggest increase (137), followed by Maryland (121), North Carolina (98), New Jersey (67), and Virginia (50).

If you prefer percentage change from 2000 to 2015, the biggest loser among the states is Alabama (-63.1 percent) and South Carolina (-55.4 percent). This excludes really small states where one or two people can make a huge percentage difference.